


Redivivus

by ScribereEstAgere



Category: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Genre: Angst, Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship/Love, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 11:12:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1385503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribereEstAgere/pseuds/ScribereEstAgere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hers is a quiet breakdown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redivivus

**Author's Note:**

> **These characters do not belong to me.**

//

redivivus \red-uh-VY-vuhs\adjective:  
Living again; brought back to life; revived; restored.

//

 

Then there is the morning he comes to work and she’s not there.

He always arrives before her, sure, but this time something is very different. Her desk is clean. Not just clean, he amends: cleared. Impersonal. All the little things that speak of Eames are gone: the framed photo of her nephew, her favourite pen, her little calendar, the stone he gave her last year, the one he found on one of his long walks, the one that reminded him of her, pale glistening grey and veined with pink. They’re all gone.

_She’s_ gone.

Bobby stands still, completely at a loss for a full minute before he senses movement near him. The look on Ross’s face says it all, and Bobby is shaking his head _no no_ even before Ross speaks:

“Bobby. I need to talk to you.”

 

//

 

She says good night to him on Friday, like she always does. She tells him to have a good weekend and he says the same to her. See you Monday, he says and she smiles. That part is not different, nor is the way he watches her walk away or the way he counts the days (two) until he sees her again. None of that is different.

But this part is: She goes home, she doesn’t bother undressing. She climbs into bed and lies there in the darkness, staring at the ceiling. She doesn’t sleep. She hasn’t slept, for more than an hour or two at a time anyway, in about a month. When she does sleep she has horrible dreams. She dreams that people she loves have died. She dreams about Joe. Joe has died. And her nephew. Her parents. And Bobby. Bobby has also died. She wakes up and realizes Joe is dead and Bobby isn’t, but could be at any time. It happens. People…die. They die and then they…they what? She doesn’t know. She can’t stop thinking about death and thinking about death gives her panic attacks, or what she assumes are panic attacks: heart knocking, hands sweating, she can’t catch her breath until she thinks _she’s_ going to die, too.

She also hasn’t been eating very much or showering very much, but those are the least of her worries. Really, she thinks, what is the point? She’ll just get hungry again, and dirty again, and have to eat and shower again and then again. She gets tired just thinking about it. It all takes so much _energy_. She doesn’t have any energy. She’s so fucking tired. Most mornings she can barely get out of bed. Dressing takes at least an hour, because she can’t decide what to wear, and she hasn’t done laundry in weeks.

So, all that is different.

She lies in bed all day Saturday and halfway through Sunday. Finally she gets up. She goes back to work. She drops the necessary paper work on Ross’s desk and reminds herself to call him when she gets back home. She thinks she should write it down on something so she doesn’t forget, but she forgets to write it down. She goes to her own desk and begins clearing it off. She takes her nephew’s photo, her favourite pen, her little calendar, the stone Bobby gave her. She puts them in her pockets. She wraps her fingers around the stone, slides her thumb across its surface, again and again. She doesn’t look at Bobby’s desk because that’s too hard. Too _complicated_.

She goes home.

There is no fanfare, no shouting, no histrionics of any kind. She doesn’t even cry. She tries to remember the last time she really cried and she can’t. She wonders if this is significant, then decides it’s not. She just goes home and turns off all the lights. She crawls into bed and pulls up the blankets. She is so very tired, but she does not sleep. There is not a sound in her apartment, and though she tries hard to hear, she’s not sure she’s even breathing.

Everything slows, and slows some more.

Hers is a quiet breakdown.

 

//

 

“I don’t understand.” It’s the fourth time he has said it. For the fourth time Ross sighs and stares down at his desk.

“I don’t either, really, but the form is here. Signed. Personal Leave of Absence.”

“For how long?”

Ross shrugs. Bobby hates him. “A month. Maybe more.”

“I just saw her…we worked… _Friday_.” Bobby fidgets. He paces. The office is too small for him and what he is feeling. “Has something happened? Did something happen to her over the weekend?”

Ross wonders if he’s supposed to answer this.

“I don’t know, Bobby. She left me a message last night, saying she needed some time off. She sounded…”

Bobby stops. “What? She sounded what?”

_Lost_ , Ross thinks and then shakes his head, irritated at his own whimsy. “Tired.”

Bobby swallows. He doesn’t want Eames to sound tired. He doesn’t want her leaving signed Personal Leave of Absence forms on Ross’s desk without even having fucking _talked_ to him first. He wants her here. Now. He also wants to punch something. He clenches his fists. He wants to punch Ross. Ross seems to sense this and backs up.

Bobby jams his fists in his pockets. He doesn’t know what else to do.

“I don’t _understand_.”

 

//

 

She calls her mother, so her family won’t worry. He mother listens and Alex pictures her playing nervously with her hair, sucking in her lower lip.

There is a pause.

“Is this about Frannie, honey?”

“No. It’s not about Frannie, Mom. I just…I need a little break. Tell everyone I’m all right and I’ll be in touch…”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you about her.”

“Mom.”

“You were such good friends for so long. It was bound to be a shock.”

“ _Mom_.”

“Are you okay, really?”

“Really. I’m just…I’m tired. I’m going to just take a break. That’s all. Really.”

“Well, all right. Call if you need anything—”

She knows Bobby will try to call. She unplugs her phone. She also knows he will come over, use his key. She puts on the safety chain. She lies in bed. She does not sleep.

 

//

 

Frannie DiMarco dies when she is 42. She gets up one morning, feeds her two daughters, sends them off to school, gets in the shower and dies.

Frannie Franklin, as she was known back then, was Alex Eames’ best childhood friend. Inseparable, their parents would say. Mutt and Jeff. Who? Doesn’t matter, they’d say. They rode bikes together, had sleepovers, talked on the phone. Then they grew apart, as friends do. Alex would get updates from her mother from time to time: Frannie graduated from college. She’s going to be a paralegal, isn’t that something? Not like being a _police officer_ , but still. Frannie got married. Frannie had a baby, and another! When are you and Joe going to start thinking about children? You’re not getting any younger, Alex.

Now Frannie’s husband is a widower and her children have no mother because Frannie had a brain aneurysm that killed her on a sunny Tuesday morning two months ago.

But this isn’t about Frannie, not in the least.

And, even if it is about Frannie, it’s only a little bit about her, not enough to even bother mentioning.

 

//

 

It’s the little things that flummox her. She likes the word flummox — she heard Bobby use it one day, the one and only time she ever heard it used in casual conversation, and it made her laugh at the time though it’s no laughing matter now — and it seems to fit her state of mind these days, so she uses it, in her head, a lot.

Should she brush her teeth?

Wash her hair?

Black or blue socks?

Cereal or a bagel?

Walk to work? Call in sick?

Sleeping pills? A whole shitload of vodka?

What happens when you die? Is there a Heaven? An Afterlife? Reincarnation? Nothing at all?

Okay, so the last questions aren’t so little, but they haunt her in the same way as the socks and the bagels because she can’t think and she can’t decide and she can’t get away from any of them.

Everything _flummoxes_ her.

 

//

 

Monday morning.

Key in the lock. Door banging against the chain.

Then she hears the knocking, tentative, and almost smiles. She listens for awhile, then gets out of bed. She stands by the door, just out of sight, listening.

“Eames. Eames, are you in there?”

“Eames I just…I need to know you’re all right. Are you? All right? I’ll go away…I promise…I just need you to let me know you’re…”

She resists the urge to reach over and touch his hand, which is curled around the door frame.

“Listen…I have to go, okay? I’m…working, you know? I just…I sneaked over here because…Anyway. I’ll be back in a little while, okay?”

“Okay then.”

“Eames?”

“Call me if you need anything.”

“Okay then.”

“Bye.”

 

//

 

Monday evening.

Key in the lock. Door banging against the chain.

“Eames? I need to talk to you. I have a question…it’s really important.”

“I’m serious…I need your opinion about this case.”

“Okay…maybe you’re sleeping. Are you sleeping? Eames?”

“I’ll let you sleep then. You need to sleep. Call me, okay? Or, I’ll call you…later.”

“If I don’t catch this guy, I’m gonna blame you, Eames.”

“That was a joke, Eames.”

“Just kidding.”

“Ha ha.”

“Eames?”

 

//

 

Tuesday morning.

She finds little things — gifts — outside her door, accumulated during the night: a green origami frog, a bag of Skittles, a cup of coffee, gone cold. A book called _The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_ (What the _hell_?). A poem ( _To one who has been long in city pent/'Tis very sweet to look into the fair/And open face of heaven—_ ) written out on yellow notepaper in his cramped hand.

She carries everything inside. She puts the book on the coffee table, with the Skittles. She sets the coffee in the microwave, but forgets to turn it on. The poem and the frog she takes to bed. She slides them both under her pillow. She lies down. She does not cry. She does not sleep.

 

//

 

She calls her Mom every day, to let her know things are "all right."

"Are you all right?" her Mom asks.

"I'm all right," she says.

"Come for dinner?"

"Not tonight. I'm too tired."

"But you're—"

"I'm all right."

She knows this message will be relayed to anyone who is concerned.

 

//

 

Tuesday afternoon.

Key in the lock. Door banging against the chain.

“Eames, open up. Your mom called. Your family is worried about you. I’m worried, too.”

“Eames. I know you’re in there. I just want to talk to you.”

“Your Mom told me about your friend…Frannie?”

_Oh god_ , she thinks.

“I just want to talk to you.”

“Eames. Open this door and let me in.”

_Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin_ , she hears in her head and starts laughing. She claps a hand over her mouth in horror because laughing right now is really not a good idea. Bobby would hear and besides, it’s not even funny. But she keeps laughing, behind her hand, as Bobby talks to her door. She laughs and laughs until she think she might cry, but of course she doesn’t cry because she hasn’t cried in months and months and months.

Then she stops laughing and goes back to bed.

 

//

 

Wednesday morning.

Key in the lock. Door banging against the chain.

“I brought you a coffee.”

“Can you come get it?”

“Okay then. I’ll put it here, okay?”

She watches him place it inside the door.

“You know, I can’t keep going on this way for too much longer. Eames?”

“You’re gonna have to…talk to me at some point.”

“You know that, right?”

“Right?”

“Just so you know. You can’t avoid me forever. I’m a bad penny…”

“Ha ha.”

“Eames?”

 

//

 

Wednesday night.

Key in the lock. Door banging against the chain.

“Eames…please.”

Knock knock.

“Listen…just…open the door, all right? I’m…I’m really worried. I just want to see that you’re … ”

Knock knock _knock._

“Eames? Please. I’m…scared, Eames, okay? Open the door. _Open this door right now_.”

Pound.

Pound pound pound pound _pound._

“I swear to god…I’ll kick it open, all right? I will. Fuck the neighbours. I’ll kick this fucking door _so hard_ —

She sighs. She hears the soft thud of his head hitting the door and then his voice, softer, defeated.

“Please Alex. Please just let me in.”

She reaches up, closes the door against his weight and slides the chain off. Then she slides down the wall until she is sitting, knees pulled up to her chest. She rests her head on her knees and waits.

The door opens.

 

//

 

What was he expecting?

It’s very dark and it doesn’t smell very good, unwashed and unaired. He fumbles for the light and almost trips over her. He stops, his heart jack hammering into his throat.

“Alex?” he whispers without realizing. He kneels down next to her, tries to gauge the situation. He holds his breath in order to hear hers. He can’t. Her hair covers her face. He puts a hand on her head, lightly. “Alex?”

She doesn’t move. He slides his hand down to her back (warm, good), feels the bones of her spine hard under his palm and wonders how he didn’t notice, how he didn’t know she wasn’t eating, how he could have been _so blind_ —

Something happens when he touches her, a swelling and a blooming and he realizes like a sharp clap of hands that this is perhaps how a parent feels, this undeniable knowledge that he loves her more than anything in the world and would kill, he would _fucking kill_ or _fucking die_ to protect her. Knowing this doesn’t frighten him. In fact, he suddenly feels that everything will be all right now, because he knows the secret now.

“Oh Alex,” he whispers and pulls her to him.

 

//

 

Something happens when he touches her. Something swells and swells and finally bursts and breaks inside her. His hand on her head, and then on her back. The sound of his voice in the dark. He says her name — her _name_ — and the way he says it, she knows, she knows—

Then he pulls her to him. He holds her clumsily against him and wraps his arms around her so tight it hurts but not nearly as much as she has been hurting so she welcomes it and she can feel his heart pounding, pounding in her ear.

She starts crying, hard. She is sobbing and she hasn’t sobbed like this since Joe died. She’s cried many times since, but not like this, and she can’t even be embarrassed because it’s _Bobby_ and she loves him more than anything so she supposes it’s all right, this one time.

He just holds her tight and murmurs things, little things, and rocks her in the dark.

 

//

 

He turns on the shower for her. While she washes he changes the sheets on her bed and cleans the few dishes in her sink. He throws open all the windows and makes her two pieces of toast. He pours her a glass of water. When he comes back to her room she’s lying facedown on her bed, dressed in a long, yellow T-shirt. He makes her sit up and eat and drink and she does, mechanically. He studies her.

“You’re not sleeping,” he says. She shakes her head.

“I can’t. I try…”

He nods.

“I know what it’s like…right? I know what it’s like to…not sleep. To feel…really bad.”

She nods because she knows it’s true. She lies down again. He lies beside her. Her hair is making her pillow wet.

He turns off the light. He rubs her back in long, slow, firm circles, his large hand moving slowly, deliberately.

“My Mom used to do that for me,” she says.

“Is it okay?”

“Yes.”

It gets later, darker, quieter. Bobby doesn’t move. He keeps rubbing. She doesn’t want him to stop.

“I have bad dreams,” she says finally, quietly.

“Tell me.”

She does.

 

//

 

“What we need,” Bobby says, “is a plan.”

“Pardon?”

“A plan.”

“A…plan.”

“Yes.”

“For what?”

“To help you sleep.”

“Bobby, we don’t need—

“We _need_ a plan,” he rides over her firmly. “I propose…I am _willing_ …to come over here every night and rub your back, to help you sleep.”

She laughs.

“Bobby, please. I am not three years old.”

“I know. I’ll still do it, though.”

She starts crying again, because she knows he would, if she let him.

 

//

 

“You should go home,” she says.

“Do you want me to go home?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to go home?”

“No.”

He keeps rubbing her back.

“Go to sleep.”

“I can’t.”

“Eames, I’m right here. You’re not going to…” He briefly closes his eyes. “You’re not going to _die_.”

Pause.

“I know.”

“All right?”

“I _know_.” Another pause. “You either.”

“Nope.”

Pause.

“Right?”

“Yes. I mean, no. No, I am not going to die, you are not going to die. No one in this room is going to die. We are just going to go to sleep and wake up in the morning, feeling happy and refreshed. Millions of people do it on a regular basis.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Because he’s there, and because he’s promised, she falls asleep but wakes up two hours later, panicked, drenched in sweat. She’s in her bed. Bobby’s in her bed. Okay. Good. It’s dark. It’s quiet. Is everyone alive? She presses two fingers to the soft pulse point in his neck. She counts. She breathes with his breaths, willing her chest to slow down. She curls up behind him and eventually closes her eyes. She does not sleep.

 

//

 

He makes an appointment with her doctor. He drives her to the appointment and waits for her.

“Well?”

She pulls a face and shows him the prescriptions. Antidepressants. Sleeping pills. Therapy.

“Ah…these ones are good.” He taps one prescription with his fingertip. “Non-addictive. Fast acting.”

She cocks an eyebrow.

“My Mom…Frank…me,” he says by way of explanation. He shrugs. She nods. She leans her head back against the seat and closes her eyes.

 

//

 

“What do you think happens when we die?” She asks this one night after he’s brought her dinner and made her eat at least enough to keep her alive for another day.

He looks at her.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay. But what do you _think_?”

He considers. She presses.

“I mean, do you think we…live on? In some other form? Or is this it. Are we… _done_ when we die. Gone. Poof.”

He swallows what he’s chewing.

“I like to think…there is something else, something bigger than us, than this. You know? But sometimes…a bad case, a bad day, a really bad person…”

He shrugs. She nods.

“Would you be sad if I died?”

“Eames—

“What?”

He shakes his head.

“Would you?”

“Let’s talk about something else.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to talk about _this_.” He won’t look at her.

“Why not?”

He shakes his head again.

“Just don’t.”

“I’d be sad if _you_ died.”

“I think you'd be the only one.”

She rolls her eyes.

“The truth of the matter, Eames, is that no one knows. There’s religion and speculation. There’s faith and science. But, in the end, no one knows. No one.”

“Some days that’s not enough.”

He pushes a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

“I know.”

 

//

 

He decides that Personal Leaves of Absences suck, especially when they have to do with Eames being absent.

As has become his routine, he calls her one morning at 11:15 a.m. No answer.

He calls her at 11:24 a.m. No answer.

He calls her _mother_ at 11:26 a.m. Answering machine. He doesn’t leave a message.

He calls Eames again at 11: 34 a.m. No answer.

He thinks about the bottle of pills, about their soft, sweet temptation, about the desire to sleep. He knows, he remembers, what it’s like. He’s been there, teetering on the orange plastic edge, many times. One good sleep. It’s all I need. One. Good. Long. Sleep. 

He thinks about Eames. He thinks about their conversations.

Then he runs.

 

//

 

He jams his key in the lock and pushes on the door, more than half expecting to feel the chain barring his way. But the door swings open freely and hits the wall behind it and he’s already down the hall to her room. It’s dark and still. She’s lying facedown on her bed and there isn’t a sound. The bottle of pills are on her bedside table, lid off.

He starts shouting.

“Eames! Eames! Wake up!”

No movement.

“Oh fuck, fuck fuck. Eames.” He spills the pills onto the table, fingers trembling, thinking he’ll count them, then swears again at his stupidity and grabs the backs of her shoulders (warm, good), shaking her roughly.

“Alex…Alex wake up. Goddammit _wake up_!”

It takes a moment for him to hear her confused mumbling over his shouts, feel her swatting at him feebly over his frantic motions, and she’s getting mad as hell.

“How many did you take? How many?”

“What…?”

He keeps shaking her.

“How many pills did you take?”

“One, Bobby…I took one…”

He takes his hands off her and collapses on the side of the bed, half on the floor.

“Jesus, Bobby. I was actually _sleeping_ for a change.”

Then she looks at him, at his face buried in his hands and his shoulders shaking.

“What…what is it?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Shit…now you’re scaring _me_.” She struggles to sit up. She puts her hand on his back. He jumps. “What happened?”

“Nothing. Nothing. It’s okay.” He scrubs at his face. He tries to smile at her.

“You’re lying.”

He takes a deep, shuddering breath. She is still trying to wake up.

“I just…I thought…you weren’t answering the phone. You didn’t…you didn’t wake up right away.”

He shrugs and rubs at his face again. She nods.

“You thought.”

“Yeah.” He squeezes her hand. “I’m really sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll … let you go back to sleep.”

She squeezes back.

“Lie down with me.”

“I can’t. I…have to go back to work.”

“Please. Just for a minute.”

He gazes at her. Her heart skips. “Eames, if I lie down with you right now, I won’t want to get back up.”

But he does, anyway. Her breathing gradually slows, evens out. She has her hands twisted in the front of his shirt.

“Thank you,” she says.

“Don’t,” he half jokes. “It was purely selfish.” His voice is still shaky.

“How’s that?”

“I need you to get better…for me. I need you to stay here. With me. I don’t know how…I don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t.”

She twists her hands up harder. She doesn’t want him to leave and really, he doesn’t want to go.

She twists harder still, then relaxes, on the edge of sleep.

“I think you’re the least selfish person I know.”

 

//

 

On his days off her takes her for walks. Hours and hours, just walking and walking, drinking decaf coffee, eating sandwiches, and not talking very much. He keeps her outside until she’s so physically exhausted there is nothing else do _but_ sleep.

Then he lies beside her as she closes her eyes and drifts away and has the best sleeps of her life.

 

//

 

It’s the little things she covets:

The wanting to get up in the morning.

The choosing a bagel for breakfast and feeling content with the decision.

Washing her hair.

Sleeping.

Talking to Bobby.

Getting ready to return to work.

With Bobby.

 

//

 

The night before, he brings dinner and a bottle of sparkling something that is not alcoholic.

“Shouldn’t drink when you’re taking that stuff,” he says. She knows.

“You’re coming back,” he says, and they toast each other.

“Looks like it.”

He’s beaming, grinning, as excited as she’s ever seen him.

“Good,” he says as he drinks, then repours. “Good.”

 

//

 

She’s tired, all on her own, and ready for bed. She’s not thinking about death or dreams or Frannie or panic attacks or pulse points.

She’s thinking about tomorrow.

“Do you want me to rub your back?” he asks as she stands.

 

//

 

“Amor vincit omnia,” he murmurs over and over as he kisses her, later, in her bedroom, in the dark. She pulls back and looks at him. His eyes are very bright. “It’s love, Eames. That’s all, but it’s everything. It’s about love.”

“Nothing lasts,” she says.

“Some things,” he says. “And even if they don’t, I wouldn’t want to miss this.”

“You love me,” she says.

“Yes.”

“And I love you,” she says. He smiles, wide and open.

“You do.” But, she hears the question there.

_You do…?_

She kisses him, long and soft and sweet.

_Yes, yes_.

Love. Could it be that simple after all?

Maybe.

Little things, she reminds herself, that aren’t so little.

She nods and kisses him again.

“Yes.”

Right at this moment, maybe.

 

//

 

_Fin_


End file.
